MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 3, 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2008 County Budget............................................................................ 1
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2008 Department Budgets................................................................... 2
Board of Supervisors (05)........................................................................................... 2
Human Resources (06)............................................................................................... 6
Physical Plant (17)...................................................................................................... 8
Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 1:05 p.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne said that Medical Examiner Administrator Mike Hensch had a last minute request for a personnel change. Hensch said that he has enough part time, no benefit hours that he spent in the last calendar year that he is interested in taking all of those hours and consolidating them into one position given the increased workload. He said he might have falsely assumed that he could ask the Board later to do that, but his Board of Supervisors liaison said that he needs to put this in the budget. Stutsman asked if this would be a benefit eligible position and a new position. Hensch replied yes and no. He said he doesn't want to hire a new person. He wants to take one of the current part time employees and move that person into fulltime to get better coverage of hours. Stutsman asked why he would have any part-time people if he were to have two fulltime people. Hensch said that there are 363 hours in a pay period, so even two fulltime people cannot cover all of the hours due to holidays and vacations and such. He said that a part-time, no benefits person has another job that is their primary one. He said that this calendar year, they had 266 cases. There is a great growth in cases. They are averaging 13.78% growth on case loads per year. They are going into their seventh year of this kind of growth. This is no new expense for the County because these hours are already paid out by a collection of part time, no benefit people. It is simply consolidating those hours. The only additional expense would be if this person chose health insurance. Stutsman said that there are $17,000 worth of benefits when the County hires a new employee. Hensch said that the FICA and the IPERS would still be exactly the same. The life insurance is .00228 cents per thousand. Long-term disability is .00275 per thousand. So, it would be less than $200 for life and disability insurance. The health and dental insurance is approximately $11,000.
Neuzil said the decision package looks odd because on total increase in expenditures it says $43,000, but, technically speaking, having this individual will save some in the part time line item. Hensch agreed. Stutsman said that part time employees are on call. Hensch agreed and explained that they receive an on-call salary of 10% of their hourly wage when on-call. He said that 53% of their cases are between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Twenty nine percent are from 5:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., and 8% are in the wee hours of the morning. He said by covering day and evening hours, they are covering well over 95% of their calls. There are very few calls between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. M. Sullivan said that they will be decreasing the amount of on-call hours by having those hours covered by full-time employees. Hensch said that is right and they won't have to pay the 10% wage for all on-call hours. Harney asked if having fewer on-call hours is going to lessen the interest in being part time on-call people. Hensch didn't think so as most would prefer to work less than they do already.
Harney said that previously, Hensch had asked for one person. Hensch said that was for an intern, who requires no expense from the County. Stutsman asked if this person would be in the office at the same time as Hensch. Hensch said that the person would not be in the office at the same time as him because they need coverage. Stutsman said that basically the person would be another Hensch without the administrative duties. Stutsman said that the part time people would only be needed when Hensch or the other person were sick or on vacation. Hensch said that there would also be hours left over that the two people could not cover. He said that he and the new person would cover most of the times, but there would still be times left over. He said that part of his motivation is that for years and years, he covered gaps in the schedule. Yet, he wants to have his holidays off just like everyone else. Stutsman said that she doesn’t have a problem with that. She just wants to be sure that they are not planning another person full time with benefits and not lowering the other part time hours. If the two people are working two 40-hours a week, that is 80 hours. So, she expects not to have to continue to pay five part time people. Hensch said that his minimum number of hours is 50 hours. There will still be some part time, non-benefit hours out there. R. Sullivan asked what the total they spent on such hours was last year. Hensch said it was $41,945 for Fiscal Year 2006. For this position, he has $38,000 budgeted for that. R. Sullivan said that they must expect growth to go up, so there would only be $5,000 in the part time no-benefits hours. Hensch agreed and said that they will end next year with 280 cases assuming current levels of growth. M. Sullivan said that the good and bad thing for the department is that the numbers are going up. This means more revenue but also an increase in work load. Hensch said to keep in mind that when they instituted this for the first time, they saw it as a part time no-benefit position. He noted that this was based on incomplete information about workload and growth over time.
M. Sullivan said that the first thing in the Board of Supervisor budget that he will cover is revenues. They had close to $500 in fees for fireworks permits. This was a decrease from prior years due to new Federal fireworks permit standards. He anticipated about 40 to 45 permits for this coming year.
On the expense side, M. Sullivan explained that there is an increase in stationary and forms of $300. All of these are due to economic increases to supply the same amount of what they already have. Most of the expense for printing and binding is from printing cards for the office staff. He dropped a vendor who was three times as expensive and is now using a local vendor that is right at $245. The rest of the increases are for staff transportation, staff meals and lodging, and staff mileage reimbursements and are all things that the Board requested be in the budget for staff development. They talked about that during Key Issues and Strategic Planning meetings. M. Sullivan reduced the staff development National Association of Counties (NACo) line item by $3,000 to zero because they moved that to Central Services, Department 18. He increased staff registration fees to equal $3,000. They wanted to keep NACo separate and use the staff fees for the other conferences. Each Supervisor requested each line item for registration fees be increased to allow attending the NACo conference, the non-chamber D.C. conference, and another one. They also talked about this during key issues. He increased the dues by $350 due to an increase in NACo and Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) dues. Notary fees are up by $45. The Board of Supervisors has an overall increase of $8,195 over the current fiscal year due primarily to staff development. Stutsman asked if they are going to zero out the part-time line item. Claiborne said that they will at least save that amount because he didn’t use that. M. Sullivan said that the overall increase then would be less than $3,000 if looking at the budget as a whole including personnel.
Claiborne said that when he initially put the budget together, he set aside $3,000 for a new copier machine. Since that time, two things have happened. First, they have unspent money in Capital Expenditures that they have earmarked for a copier that they have not yet spent. They also had a company come in to do a quote. They said that they could sell the right kind of machine for $9,000, even less that he had anticipated. He thought they should go ahead and not budget for this but spend the already dedicated funds out of capital expenditures. M. Sullivan said that around $24,000 is in capital expenditures for this. Stutsman said that she thought they were going to take Information Services money and roll it over to Information Services Director Jean Schultz's expenses for the new building. Claiborne said that he, M. Sullivan, and Schultz got together to talk about using some of that $24,000 to replace this machine. M. Sullivan explained that the cost for them to have this machine on the underwriter's plan is $90 a year even though it doesn’t work quite right. For the new machine, they wouldn't have any maintenance needed in addition to the manufacturers warranty, which is four years. After that, they will have to add the machine to the insurance. He talked about getting a color copy machine. If they budgeted it out, they would get it in 2010, but the current machine will not last until then.
M. Sullivan said that they do need a new first aid kit in the office. He said they have an AED in the building now. He just replaced the battery with this year’s money, so they should be good for the next several years. He will be doing the training on the AED, so it will be no expense to the Board office. They will have the CPR training provided by the Health Department. They might have to cover the cost for the licensing card. He said he checks the battery every month.
Neuzil said that he thinks the Board should have cell phones. All the other elected officials have them. Stutsman said that is another $1,800 that they would be adding to the budget. Stutsman said that she doesn’t think a $30 stipend is necessary for one or two calls that she might get on her cell phone that are work related. Neuzil asked why other departments have cell phones then. Stutsman said she doesn’t understand why the Treasurer needs a cell phone. Kadlec said the Auditor’s Office has office cell phones for people who are delivering elections machines. She said she believes that County Auditor Tom Slockett uses his personal cell phone. R. Sullivan said this might be a good issue for the Compensation Board because they have latitude to research this. Neuzil said that if department heads have cell phones, it makes sense that their bosses would have them. R. Sullivan said that part of the reason for the policy is that everyone getting the same stipend for cellular phones makes these differences equal. Stutsman said that she isn’t sure they are conducting most of their business on the cell phone. Harney said that he uses the land phone for long distance calls, when a cell phone probably wouldn’t be nearly as expensive. R. Sullivan said that he thought their last long-distance bill was $2,200. So, they could use cell phones for that. M. Sullivan said that he used his cell phone in Hawaii and there were no roaming charges because it was networked in. He said that they are different than department heads in that the Board constitutes the Chief Elected Officers. He said that Ambulance Director Steve Spenler and County Engineer Greg Parker probably do more on a cell phone because they are always out and about. Stutsman said that they could go as far as to have the County pay for her land line because that is the line she uses for most of her business. Harney said that he would rather have a minimum stipend that would pay for the calls that he uses for the job on his phone. That is the whole policy, said R. Sullivan. He said that Neuzil is simply saying that he wants the Board to be covered by that policy. The stipend component complies with the tax code that Aschenbrenner researched. Being paid for calls that are separated out are taxed in a different way. R. Sullivan said that he really thinks this should be an issue for the Compensation Board. Stutsman said she doesn’t understand why that would be under their purview. Neuzil added that if some Board members don’t want to use their cell phones and the stipend, they don’t have to. He said that for him, if he wants to get a hold of Facilities Director David Kempf, he wants to be able to do that, and he would hope that County officials would have the same attitude toward the Board. Kadlec said that this might be something to go to the Attorney’s Office before the Compensation Board. If the stipend is given to any elected officials and if that is taxable and that is considered wages, then they are at a cap for what they can make. The Compensation Board might have to increase their salary by $30 a month because they are not allowed to make over a certain amount of money. Kadlec agreed to call County Attorney Janet Lyness and ask if this would be an issue for the Compensation Board.
Harney said that when M. Sullivan is gone there is no one there to step up to do the work of confidential evaluations. He said that Secretary II Jo Hogarty is a confidential employee, so she could be doing some of this work. He thought they would have to change the job description. M. Sullivan said that they wouldn’t have to change the description. Stutsman asked why Hogarty is in the union if she is a confidential employee. M. Sullivan said that confidential employees can be in the union. He explained that there are Confidential Secretary II's in the Attorney’s Office as well. He said that this confidentiality is written into Hogarty’s job description. He said that Hogarty could do some of the confidential work and certainly he would edit it before it hit the Board. Even if it was an added responsibility, it would not put Hogarty in another pay range according to Shramek.
Claiborne said that last year to stay in the $3.50 levy they were coming in at $15,417,333 in the General Basic Fund. This year, based on evaluations, they are coming in at $15,987,073, which is $569,740 more to work with as a starting point. He said that they talked about moving MECCA to the General Supplemental Fund. They can add $324,635 onto the $569,000, so they are coming almost $900,000 better as a starting point. He said that Social Services Coordinator Amy Correia is looking into foster care expenses that fall into the General Supplemental part of the Code, so they could have another $20,000 that they can shift out of General Basic to General Supplemental. Stutsman asked if they have received any information back on salaries. Neuzil asked what they have after salaries. Claiborne said Information Services is working on a report for him so that he can bring up payroll only expenses per fund. Some such as FICA and IPERS will come out of General Basic, but the General Supplemental transfer will replenish that figure.
Claiborne said that County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek has asked for three additional positions at roughly $180,000, but he consistently turns in around $250,000 a year. So, he could probably absorb those funds. He said that Ambulance Director Steve Spenler could probably also absorb the cost of his new personnel because he also tends to turn in a chunk of money at the end. R. Sullivan said that they also have to authorize the position. Moreover, they could also cut spending and give the position to someone else or not fund it. He wants the Board to have control over that decision and not just the department heads. M. Sullivan said that the Board can decide to approve the new positions with the stipulation that the departments absorb the cost in their budgets instead of getting more money for them. Harney said that they haven’t yet discussed the new Health and Human Services Building that will need a receptionist out front.
Kadlec noted that she talked to Lyness who said that the cell phone money is taxed but it is not taxed as a wage, so the Compensation Board does not have to be involved. Stutsman said again that she is willing to absorb the cost of a cell phone as part of her job as a Supervisor. Neuzil said that the Compensation Board has always agreed that the Board needs more money, and other than last year, this Board of Supervisors has never taken that money. R. Sullivan said that the salary survey that ISAC did was really helpful in terms of seeing where they are. R. Sullivan said that the cell phone would be on his wish list but would probably not be a high priority on that list. Harney said he would like to know more about how much tax they would have to pay on it. Meyers said that he isn’t sure about cell phone usage because today is just his second day on duty. He said that once a user goes over the allotted minutes, the bill does get really expensive. The Board decided to put this issue on the back burner for now until they get more information. Stutsman said that she would rather have that money go toward staff development than to cell phones.
Claiborne said that the only significant change in the Human Resouces department is for office equipment at $2,050. Shramek said that is tied directly into their personnel request. The money is for a desk, a filing cabinet, and a telephone. Claiborne said that there are no revenues. They also have expenditures for the new position. R. Sullivan asked about the position being at pay grade 19 and what the top of the scale is. Shramek said the low end starts at $38,000 to $42,000. Claiborne said that Shramek has provided a comparison of other counties and the number of staff per Human Resources full time equivalent. Shramek said that by adding a full time position, that would bring their ratio from 1:189 to 1:131. Even by adding that one full time position, they are still in line with Scott, Black Hawk, and Linn Counties. Shramek explained that they are just in the position of having too many kids in the classroom, so to speak. Stutsman said that if there is just one position they could hire this year, this would be the one. She noted that Shramek certainly asked for this last year and has made adjustments in her department to accommodate with what they did not provide. Neuzil said that he doesn’t quite agree with that, but he does believe that one of things that has given him caution is that they would be able to handle the union contracts. He was always hoping that by adding this position, Human Resources would then be able to handle the union contracts. Shramek said that she knows that there are mixed feelings among the Board on that, so she doesn’t have clear direction at this point. She explained that Linn County, for example, hires out for their collective bargaining, as does Black Hawk County. In contrast, Scott County does the bargaining in-house. That is important information in the decision-making process. Neuzil asked if they are anticipating that the request for the $18,000 would stay as is. Shramek said yes. Stutsman asked if they spend what is budgeted on that. Shramek said that usually not, but this year, they had more grievances than usual.
R. Sullivan said it looks like their salaries are low in comparison to other counties. She said that they are a little lower but not bad. She said that a lot of that has to do with the number of people. She said that a big thing there is safety. They are handling that safety, when that is often in a completely separate department. Neuzil asked if for this fiscal year there were things that Human Resources had provided were cut back. Shramek said yes. Neuzil asked if those things would be added back in starting on July 1, 2007. Shramek said that they have cut back by taking Human Resources Coordinator Vanessa Kuo and herself off of the Communication Committee. Human Resources Assistant Susan Vileta continues to be, but she is compensated by the Communications Committee for the time she spends on that. Neuzil said that Vileta has been paid .65 in Human Resources and some from the Communications Committee. R. Sullivan said it is only $1,500 a year. Neuzil asked if that payment would be stopped. Shramek explained that Vileta does not exactly work the balance in Human Resources. She hasn’t been working Human Resources’ hours plus Communications Committee. She also has a position with the County Assessor’s office as well. She is budgeted for 24 hours total, and Shramek isn’t sure where she is coming up at this point, but she was falling short on Human Resources hours for a while. Neuzil asked if they would then go back to the old way. Shramek said yes. Shramek said that they don’t necessary need the $1,500; they need the productivity and help.
Stutsman said it would be interesting know from the other counties how many unions they have. Shramek said that Scott County has fewer than Johnson County, while Black Hawk has more, coming in at eight. Johnson County has six. Neuzil asked if there is space for the additional person. Shramek said that they do have space. They would put her where former Human Resources Coordinator Jen Feldmann was. Neuzil asked if Human Resources is moving to the new building. Shramek said that she hasn’t heard anything official, but that is a possibility. She noted they would like to be where the majority of the people are. Neuzil asked if this position is similar to what Kuo is doing. Shramek said yes, it is exactly the level of Kuo’s position.
Stutsman asked if the proposed salary survey would be over two fiscal years. Shramek said whatever could be worked out but $200,000 will fund the whole project. Harney said he would like to see them budget at least half this year and half the next year and then combine them and do both at one time. M. Sullivan asked if they actually want to spend the money now. Harney said he doesn’t care how exactly Shramek spends it. He is saying that if they budget half this year and half the following, they know it is coming in July. So, she could spend part of it to get started or spend it all right after the first of the next fiscal year, either would be fine. Stutsman said that the money wouldn’t roll over like capital expenditures, so she would probably have to spend it. Stutsman said that they may be able to fund the whole thing in one fiscal year. R. Sullivan said it would help to know from Shramek how often such a study should happen, then they can set aside a certain amount in capital every year for that. Neuzil said that they should at least commit to $100,000 for Department 18 for this. Shramek said that when the Board had an initial salary survey in 1998, it was rolled out into two phases. Stutsman said that they have the commitment to do it; now they just need to figure out the details. Shramek said it is a lot of legwork up front. R. Sullivan asked what the time span would be before they are ready for full-blown surveys. Shramek replied it would be great if they could it every five years, but they would never want to go more than ten years.
Neuzil asked Shramek to explain what the salary survey to County Supervisor Larry Meyers. Shramek stated that they have non-bargaining employees who make up the largest single group of employees in Johnson County. They have over 100 job classifications. In 1998, the Board hired an outside consultant. The process started in 1997 before she was at the County. They make sure that they have all of the job descriptions up to date. They identify certain benchmark positions and do a salary survey with their comparability group. This way, they have a market trend of where they want to be. Then, they also have their internal comparison where they are comparing a position in SEATS to a position in Planning and Zoning. Right now, they have a tool that involves ten compensable factors including supervision, discretion, contribution, and so on. Those are all ranked and assigned points. So, they look at each job description and evaluate it, assigning points based on minimum education level and other factors. They come up with a point total that is then married with the market data. Then, they have pay grades established. They have grades from 27 down to 9. Some of those don’t actually have positions. They are established ten percent apart. That has been going on ever since 1998. The Board has approved cost of living adjustments for those. There is also a step structure involved as well as a merit component. If employees earn a high merit level, then they are eligible for a merit increase of up to 3%. She said it is a little complicated, but the chart will help. Harney said that it basically boils down to job description duties equaling the pay scale they are in. Then, the Board decided where they want to pay in relation to the market: above, below, or at market. Meyers asked if there are things like the differences in the cost of living from county to county. Shramek said absolutely because Iowa City has the second highest cost of living next to Ames. Shramek said that if they end up not spending the full $200,000, she wondered if that money would be rolled over into the next year. M. Sullivan said yes. Stutsman said she isn’t sure of that. She thought they would have to put in capital projects. M. Sullivan thought they could keep funding this out of central services. It would come out of the General Basic Fund balance. He said that the capital expenditures and projects funds were separated out of the General Basic Fund a while back.
M. Sullivan said that Facilities Director Dave Kempf went home ill this morning. Claiborne said that the entire budget was around $776,000 in 2006. They budgeted $909,000 in 2007 including personnel. This year, they budgeted $619,079 without personnel, which is a $30,925 increase. Claiborne said that all of this can be shifted to the debt service levy if they would prefer to do that rather than spending from the General Basic Fund. R. Sullivan said that it seems that Kempf doesn’t seem to use the decision packets in quite the same way that other department heads use it. He thought Kempf might need some training on how to fill these out. M. Sullivan said that $44,105 is for the Courthouse and are all ongoing expenses for maintenance and not for projects, but he cannot say why that $36,500 is an increase. He said that Kempf reduced the Administration Building by $23,500 because what he has set aside from last year, he does not need for this year. Claiborne said that he will ask Kempf if the Courthouse repairs would be a bond-able item. M. Sullivan said that any of these things that involve maintaining or improving or enhancing any County structures would be debt service levy eligible. He said that all of the capital expenditures in the package qualify for debt services and that is what they did last year on all of Kempf’s budget.
Neuzil asked if the expenditures for rehabilitating the Administration Building, such as putting in a skywalk to the new Health and Human Services Building are part of the $9 million borrowing. M. Sullivan said that they could do it both ways. It could be included in the package for the Health and Human Services Building or it could be funded separately from the new building. Neuzil asked if they could include things like moving the Information Services Department or changing the Board room. M. Sullivan said that they will treat it as a separate project unless they have the money available within the $9 million. He said that if they have to bond for it separately it could be a debt service levy cost rather than a General Fund cost. R. Sullivan said that know that at a minimum they will have to move the City Assessor so they should put that on the debt service. M. Sullivan agreed. Stutsman said that the Board needs to make some decisions about the Health and Human Services Building. She said that there might be a point where they need to start talking to the City of Iowa City about moving the City Assessor. M. Sullivan asked if it is a requirement that they be housed in the Administration Building. Stutsman said no. R. Sullivan said that there isn't a requirement that there be a City Assessor. Stutsman said that there used to be a lot of people visiting these offices, but now a lot of business is done by email. Neuzil and Harney thought that it is in the Code of Iowa that if there is a City Assessor the County has to provide space for that. M. Sullivan said that they should research this issue.
Adjourned at 2:50 p.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2007
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on January 29, 2007 at 6:30 p.m.